It is known that the thickness of Silicon-carbide (SiC) substrates in SiC-based light emitting devices can affect the forward voltage needed to operate the devices at a given current level. For example, the SiC-based light emitting diode C450-CB230-E1000 available from Cree, Inc. has a substrate thickness of about 250 μm (+/−25 μm) and has an associated forward operating voltage of about 3.5 volts at about 10 mA forward operating current. Moreover, reducing the thickness of the SiC substrate of an LED may reduce the forward voltage, which may yield reduced power consumption in such diodes.
It is also known that many small electronic devices may incorporate individual devices having reduced thicknesses so that the overall thickness of the electronic device may be reduced. For example, manufacturers of cellular phones may use surface-mounted LED chips to reduce the thickness of the component used to backlight a display of the cellular phone. Accordingly, reducing the thickness of the SiC substrate may also allow the device to be used in these types of small electronic devices.
It is known to form ohmic contacts on SiC at low/room temperature by, for example, implanting ions into a backside of a SiC wafer. However, if an implanted SiC substrate is thinned prior to formation of ohmic contacts, the doped region may be removed during the thinning, which may make the implant superfluous. Accordingly, metals deposited to form ohmic contacts may not have ohmic properties when deposited on the substrate as the implant may be performed in a later step. Ion implantation for the formation of ohmic contacts is discussed, for example, in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/787,189, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,884,644, issued Apr. 26, 2005 and Ser. No. 10/003,331, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,803,243, issued Oct. 12, 2004, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties as if set forth fully herein.
It is also known to form metal ohmic contacts by depositing a metal, such as nickel, and annealing the metal at a high temperature (such as temperatures greater than 900° C.). High temperature annealing may damage epitaxial layers of gallium nitride based materials included on the SiC substrate. Accordingly, there is a need for improved methods for forming ohmic contacts to substrates of materials such as SiC, GaN, InGaN or the like.